Broadband grants will require nondiscrimination

The federal agencies responsible for administering the broadband stimulus program have announced their initial grant criteria, and the news on the openness front is good.

In comments filed in April, CDT urged that broadband services supported by stimulus money should connect users to the full Internet and the full range of Internet-based content and applications, as selected by users and without discrimination. After all, the core policy rationale for supporting broadband is that it serves as crucial basic infrastructure, much like roads or electricity. Basic infrastructure is so important precisely because it enables so much other activity, much of which cannot be anticipated at the time the infrastructure is laid and is initiated by users of the infrastructure rather than the infrastructure’s operators...